Hello hello! This is my first writeup on this sub so please bear with me. This happened a few months ago yet has been resurfacing again, and I'm also quite surprised no one has done a writeup about this, so without further ado:
Who are Seventeen (SVT)?
Seventeen is a 13-member boy group (yes, they're called Seventeen with thirteen boys, 13 members, 3 units, 1 team) with 11 Korean members and 2 Chinese members.
Our main character today is one of our Chinese members, The8. From this point on, I'll be calling him by his legal first name, Minghao. He's my favourite member, but this incident was too funny and unserious yet so toxic.
Prelude: Maybe don't listen to your company when they want money in China
The year is 2019 and Hong Kong (where I'm from) is in political crisis. The police are brutally attacking protestors for asking to revoke an extradition bill, and the protestors are destroying public property. All you need to know is that both sides were an absolute shitshow, even if I personally believe the protestors had good goals in mind.
Under Xi's command, celebrities are obligated to post CCP posters/copypastas on Weibo, basically known as Chinese Twitter. What you need to know about Weibo is that it is incredibly state-regulated, the users are incredibly toxic and nationalistic, and it's sadly, where you find the best fan content.
A bunch of Chinese idols posted a copypasta condemning the desecration of the Chinese flag being thrown in the sea. This was disappointing, but it was considered a more 'neutral' statement and those who posted the message kind of lived life as before (except for Jackson Wang, but that's a different story).
However, Hong Kong Carats (SVT fans) found out Minghao and Junhui, the other Chinese member, posted a message saying that they directly supported the HK Police and how shameful Hong Kong had became. This PR message obviously gained them support in Mainland China and it was proven to be PR as another Chinese idol under the same company posted at the exact same time, but it was too late.
This meant war. Hong Kong, Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese fans quickly split into:
The deluded OT13s: "Minghao and Junhui were held hostage to post!!! They don't know better!!" I don't think anyone from these regions have this viewpoint, but a lot of international fans do.
The OT2s: "Thanks Junhui and Minghao for showing support to our glorious motherland while the Pearl of the Orient is in cuts and bruises!!" The Mainland Chinese viewpoint.
The Junhui and Minghao haters: "FUCK THOSE PRO CCP DOGS I HOPE THEY KILL THEMSELVES AND LEAVE THE GROUP CCP BOOTLICKERS GO TO HELL WEN JUNHUI GO TO HELL XU MINGHAO" The more common HK/TW viewpoint.
The reasonable Junhui and Minghao sceptists: "I can't fully support Junhui and Minghao due to their viewpoints but I will ignore their content instead of fuelling the fire." The less common HK/TW viewpoint.
The actually reasonable OT13s: "We support all 13 boys yet we are disappointed with Minghao and Junhui's choice. If they do something more extreme in the future, we might need to reconsider who we support." Somehow the rarest viewpoint.
If you couldn't tell, that last one is where I stand, and I do not blame anyone for having the third viewpoint.
All is calm (on the surface)
Pledis Entertainment (SVT's company)'s Chinese branch, XCSS (where Minghao and Junhui are signed) definitely saw the backlash on Weibo, Twitter and LIHKG (basically Hong Kong twitter), and stopped forcing them to post copypastas.
This was not enough for Hong Kong and Taiwanese fans (who I consider as 1 fanbase). As much as China, Hong Kong and Taiwanese netizens don't want to admit, they're basically the same type of netizens, just on opposite political views. Most are unhinged, crazy, stalkerish, money dumpers. The only difference is that Chinese netz harass anyone who does not believe in the "glorious" CCP (even if it's like, going to Japan or congratulating athletes for achievements) for years, and HK/TW netz harass anyone who shows even an inkling of connection to China.
This can include: creating a Weibo or Xiaohongshu account (more on XHS later), visiting Mainland China or committing the heinous crime of writing in Simplified Chinese. They won't give a fuck if you're Chinese, HK/TW, or Korean, write Simplified Chinese and you're being dragged everywhere.
Edit that I forgot to put in: It is also worth noting that HK celebrity culture is INSANELY toxic. A celebrity's popularity in modern era is directly based on how much they support Hong Kong independence. Small acts such as taking a picture with a Mainland Chinese person or appearing on a Mainland Chinese show is considered betrayal to Hong Kong. Athletes aren't safe either, because someone leaked Vivian Kong's thesis paper that was apparently pro-CCP, and people are pissed that Cheung Ka Long is appearing in the National Games.
Obviously there are normal people, but this is what happens when you give people a platform that is barely moderated in the form of LIHKG.
Chinese netz are the same but with opposite political views and without the unmoderated forum.
HK and TW netizens continuously harassed Junhui and especially Minghao for years, calling them ugly, untalented, demanding Pledis take action and remove them from the group, burning their PCs, calling their (very few) HK and TW fans CCP dogs (I have had firsthand experience with this), you name it. They've faced the most harassment from HK/TW netz compared to any other idol except for maybe, again, Jackson Wang.
Seventeen would not come to Hong Kong or Taiwan for 8 years since their previous concert in 2017 after this incident.
Wait, why only target Minghao? Didn't Junhui post the CCP copypasta too?
It's time for a little linguistics and geography lesson!
Minghao and Junhui are from opposite sides of China. Minghao is from the Northern part, also known as Dongbei (東北), literally translating to Northeast. The provinces in Dongbei are Liaoning, Heilongjiang and Jilin. Minghao is from Liaoning, specifically Anshan, and his Dongbei accent is quite heavy (he's the least fluent of our 3 non-Korean passport holders in Korean), something that C-netz find cute and HK/TW netz find disgusting.
Junhui is from the Southern part of China, which consists of provinces Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan. Junhui is a Guangdong native (specifically Shenzhen, a city I can go to in 30 minutes). What's important to note is that the main language/dialect (whatever you want to call it) is Cantonese, and Junhui specifically is fluent-ish (just with an accent and like needs practice). However, the younger generation mainly speaks Mandarin due to the CCP's policy on standardization (which is sad to see), and 60% of Guangdongers are Chinese from other provinces .
Dongbei (and much of Northern China), however, only speaks Mandarin with no primary dialect. This means that Minghao only grew up speaking Mandarin, which to HK fans specifically, meant he was an evil POS who was probably the reincarnation of Mao Zedong.
This caused a bunch of HK/TW netz to parade Junhui as the more "acceptable" one, as he can still speak a non-CCP language. It's worth noting that there are some REALLY far-right HKers who still don't accept Guangdong Cantonese as "real" Cantonese, but those are like, a really small minority. However, because Minghao can only speak Mandarin, while also having worse Korean than Junhui, he got the brunt of all the hate between the two.
As a Minghao-biased Hong Kong Carat, you can kind of tell why I only interact on English-speaking sites. The Chinese sites aren't any better. If Minghao is considered Satan in HK/Taiwan, he's literally considered god in China. This man can do absolutely no wrong. His fans are also batshit crazy, to the point of harassing other members' families.
Welcome back... wait no-.
On September 27th and 28th, Seventeen held their first concert in Hong Kong in 8 years, due to the new Kai Tak Stadium opening. What was supposed to be a happy reunion moment quickly devolved back into 2019 levels of splitting.
The reason for this had to do with 2 things.
- Junhui starred in a film with Jackie Chan, and the former invited him on stage. I don't know why anyone in Pledis didn't do background research on why people in HK (and even China) hate Jackie Chan (spoiler: ACTUAL CCP bootlicker and was a huge POS to his daughter), but they brought him up on stage. As someone who attended night 1, I remember it was a mix of "HOLY SHIT IT'S JACKIE CHAN" in Mandarin and "EW IT'S JACKIE CHAN" in Cantonese.
If that wasn't enough, for the next 2 weeks or so Pledis milked every chance they got to make content with JC. This led to many HK fans unstanning the group for fear of all 13 boys supporting the CCP through Jackie Chan. While there was obvious criticism for inviting Jackie Chan, the criticism quickly devolved into fullblown hate against Minghao, like K-pop fans do. The hate towards Minghao was even higher than in 2019.
Wait, wasn't it Junhui who invited him on stage? Why is Minghao getting hate for it?
This leads back to my linguistics lesson and the second main reason why people were so pissed at the concert.
Xu Minghao committed the absolutely unspeakable crime of not speaking a single Cantonese word during both nights of the concert. For context, literally every other boy said at least a "hello" in Cantonese.
This pissed off Hong Kong and Taiwanese fans even more, and this pretty much was the breaking point. For context, Minghao got hate around a year ago for a previous stop in Thailand for not speaking Korean for his ending words, and spoke Chinese instead. This got some Thai netz angry, but again, the main source of outrage was from HK and Taiwanese fans.
There were obviously people angry at Junhui for inviting Jackie Chan on stage, which, is reasonable to an extent. However, people still attacked Minghao more, calling him "the more pro-CCP dog, a Hong Kong genocide supporter, a enemy of the state, a monster to HK democracy". Yes, all of that was on Threads alone. Junhui still caught some strays, but not nearly to the level of Minghao.
If there isn't a SVT concert in Hong Kong for another 8 years, you know why.
No one is safe, even if you're Korean
Joshua Hong, who is Korean but raised in the US, is the final member of the foreign trio in Seventeen. It could be accepted as a quartet if you add Wasian member Vernon Chwe, but most fans accept him as a Korean as he's more steeped into Korean culture.
The night after the second night ended, Joshua committed the atrocious misdeed of creating a Xiaohongshu account. This was when the hatred towards Jackie Chan, Minghao and Junhui was at its highest, and any SVT member linked to China would be caught in the crossfire. Unfortunately, he chose a pretty terrible time to create an account. A lot of HK/TW netz accused him of catering to the Chinese market instead of caring about their livelihoods, and pointed out how a lot of his stalker fans were Chinese and he was catering to their evil deeds.
This in turn, led to even more people leaving the fandom for something as innocent as making a XHS account.
Aftermath: Xu Minghao, the enemy of freedom for HKers and Taiwanese
As of today, Xu Minghao of Seventeen is still the most hated active K-pop idol in Hong Kong and Taiwan. While the main wave of harassment towards him, Junhui and Joshua has thankfully passed, he's still getting threats to leave the group daily, and still being scrutinised for his looks, talent, political stance and his Korean skills.
Minghao and Junhui deserve criticism for their political stance, but it shouldn't have crossed the line that it did. Check out their most recent solo MVs here!
My I - Jun and The8 (one of the BEST K-pop choreographies imho)
Have a good day, and stan Seventeen. Minghao is still my favourite member of Seventeen after 2 years of stanning the group. Please refrain from being Sinophobic.
Edit: A disclaimer that I do NOT support the CCP if it wasn't obvious enough.
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The whiplash I felt opening this post and seeing it was about Seventeen lmao, I had not expected it to be about Minghao of all idols! Thank you for sharing, I had no idea this was even going on.
(Fwiw on the Vernon front from what I understand he's given up his US citizenship? He definitely plans on enlisting for SK, and has made it very clear he feels more Korean than American.)
the passport revoke is why i considered vernon to not be part of the foreign line, and as you said, it's quite clear he's more korean.
We dont know if Vernon had actually given up his American citizenship but he for sure is keeping his Korean one as he was seen voting in Korea before. It is possible to have dual citizenship as a Korean, one just has to acquire at birth.
i think vernon might still have both. either way, it doesnt matter, he can still enlist even with dual citizenship now, so no reason to give it up.
incredible drama and writeup of the drama, however what do you mean 2019 was seven years ago 😭
IT WAS. I WAS 10 WHEN THIS DRAMA HAPPENED AND I ONLY KNEW ABOUT IT BC MY DAD WAS GOING TO ME LIKE "hey your fav kpop idol is a CCP shill" so i did the research for this
what the hell. we need to put a moratorium on time
The sheer mortification of watching your favorite Chinese celebrity on TV with your parents during CNY programs (I'm Chinese too, just not mainland/HK/TW) and awkwardly having to sit through the obligatory CCP propaganda segments as a family is unparalleled lmaooooo.
i think what's equally embarrassing is watching product placement. i watched a survival show and throughout the show there was this bottled fizzy flavoured water that i actually drink often, but it was placed at the WEIRDEST places. like they're dancing, why am i looking at qi - peach flavoured water???
This is such a mood.
My parents aren't into the survival show side of C-ent stuff, so they still don't understand why I specifically go to get certain brands of drinks when meeting up with fandom friends, or why I find this one milk brand so hilarious at all (Telunsu, if you've seen it around).
I have watched some Keep Running (because of Yuqi being a cast member on more recent seasons) and some of the stuff is a bit crazy.
which means you're... Seventeen now
Absolute Cinema
i'm 17 in 5 months haha
I'm glad to see Hong Kong fellows here, thank you for the post
This is such a funny way to learn about this lol
We're in 2025 it was only 6 years ago tho
i think i messed it up as the last svt concert in HK was like... 2018 which was 7 years ago.
edit: IT WAS 8 YEARS. THEIR LAST CONCERT BEFORE 2025 WAS 2017.
As a Chinese person, if I may be so bold: Have you already left Hong Kong?
If you read their age, OP is still a kid. Tough for them to emigrate anywhere
nope
I believe that the OP is 16 years old (international age)
I feel so old 🥲 I graduated high school and entered uni in 2019.
That was literally a decade after me.
Same 🫠
Some of us were around when the internet was a room in the house, and you used your telephone line. Some of us had a second line just to dial up without someone picking up the house phone! Oh, and cell phones weren't a thing.
I grew up with a family computer in the “computer room” lol. I jumped to smartphones/laptops when I was 13.
I was working as an adult before the iPhone or any Androids existed... and kids didn't have phones at all. Edit: and laptops weren't a thing for most people.
I had a phone and a laptop from elementary school, which was really rare for 90s kids, but my dad wanted to foster an interest in technology in me. In a way, he succeeded, but hoo boy that did not help my social development in school.
I’d been working for 13 years by then 🤣
Nah, it's only 5 years between Dec 31 2019 and Jan 10 2025...
I really enjoyed this one, kpop (and generally non-hollywood entertainment) drama never fails to be unhinged. Also thank you for giving political/ geographical context!
thank you and happy cake day! i'm just a high school student aspiring to major in polisci who likes kpop and is unfortunately based in a political minefield.
i should probably go study now.
When you get to uni, do your thesis on this! Honestly it’s really interesting learning about the cultural context of this drama (especially with me being an outsider in the U.S. who doesn’t listen to Kpop)
That would probably be way too political to get accepted as a thesis... I don't really know much about Hong Kong's current situation, but surely universities wouldn't want to attract the wrath of CCP.
leaving HK for uni most likely so i'll consider it lol
Good for you, and as someone who left her own dictatorship (Russia), good luck!
That makes sense, good luck!!
Girl I totally believe u will make it in polisci!! I read the whole thing at 5 am in the morning without getting sleepy = u got a way of explaining things in such a clear and organised way and made me curious about this specific topic
this comment made my day. thank you so much!!
Ah, K-Pop, where scandals can range from eating a strawberry weird, to gang-rape.
And I know fans of anything can be completely insane, but it really does to feature heavily in K-pop.
Great write up, thank you. I only vaguely know of Seventeen, so this was really interesting to read.
Gang rape???
search up moon taeil case
And what's sad is I wasn't thinking of that one, I was thinking of a different scandal involving gang-rape.
there was a writeup on burning sun and nth room iirc
Seungri?
Yikes...
K-pop is like the Florida of fandom drama. You know that weird stuff is happening elsewhere, but for some reason this is where it all gets amplified.
Nice write up!
(But I think you might have meant flag “desecration”, instead of the word you used)
thank you. i swore i used the wrong word HAHAHAHAH
Thanks, I really enjoyed it. It's fascinating to see how something as seemingly apolitical as K-pop is ultimately highly political. What's the problem with Jackson Wang? I listen to some of his songs but I'm not really deep in the lore.
he's a mainlander who's parents came to HK for work. while jackson wang posted more tame copypastas compared to the main characters in this drama (the flag one), he quickly became the ACTUAL enemy of HKers because he was paraded as the best boy from Hong Kong.
it's died down as of now as Jackson is mainly in the US and reuniting with his band Got7 (check out Python!)
I'm really far removed/ignorant of KPop/CPop/MandoPop/Idol Group culture, but doesn't Jackson Wang do the "I'm just an artist, I just wanna do my thing" and "biased western media wants to smear China" balancing act?
You can't be serious with this channel...
[deleted]
I mean, his word choice is literally "propaganda bullsh*t" and "IDK what game they're trying to play".
tbh i don't rly keep up w jackson or got7 too much but its probably true. either way tbh i've never seen him as a HKer (last name is Wang so like i always thought he was mainland lol)
late to this post as it just came up when i was googling svt lore lmao, but doesn't the jackson thing have to do with him choosing to start introducing himself as 'Jackson Wang from china' specifically, during the time of the HK protests? I think i remember reading something like that on twitter or whatever
Kpop has weird interactions with politics. There was a whole mess when Karina from Aespa posted a picture that was vaguely supportive (or could be interpreted to be supportive) of a political party close to an election.
They take it so seriously, as in some idols will avoid wearing red or blue, or even turn their photos grey scale to avoid being accused of showing support for one party over another.
wow i've been a svt fan since 2016 and i completely missed the 2019 drama, but i did side-eye the jackie chan thing this year. didn't know it ran much deeper.
now i understand why i see a lot of defensive posts about junhui & minghao from time to time. thank you for the post!
Since when does junhui speak fluent Cantonese? I haven't stanned for some years but then he was speaking broken Cantonese and required relearning it. Shenzhen is speaking Mandarin (though I guess due to the vicinity there's still Cantonese heard), but as a child (he was a child actor) he had gigs in Hongkong so he learned Cantonese then but had forgotten a lot of it since. There was a full series of Chinese tongue twisters on YouTube with him struggling to read the Cantonese ones.
okay fluent was an overexaggeration. he can still speak it conversationally (he's like at... my level because i go to an international school).
he's still paraded as the 'better' one though
Fair enough. Anyway cnetz drama always baffles me because it's so completely detached from knetz and inetz drama and requires a lot of background knowledge. They usually contain it well within their spaces so it doesn't spill over into international Twitter Their fan sites organization feels also next level
I'm a huihui so I saw a fair share of hate campaigns against wjh in my time as well, interesting to see how it differs and fluctuates between him and t8 (both of them were the origin of me beginning to stan back then)
til iskls are considered to have bad canto. almost all my iskl friends in uni have better canto than i do
i do have bad canto that's my point LMFAO
and this doesn't even touch on how even though jun is the more acceptable one he was the one getting doxxed a few weeks ago 😔 shit be wild for the foreign line these days
WHAT HAPPENED OMG I DIDN'T REALISE THIS
i'm not SUPER well-informed (j-fan not c-fan) but as far as i can tell a group of really dedicated jun antis stemming from this same incident (or a similar one you know how often this shit happens to c-line lmao) started doxxing jun and then jun's family a few weeks back due to his increased visibility from shadow's edge.
edit: this was happening on weibo, if you want to try and piece together
Wow I am so into this- thank you!
I know very little about Chinese regions and their politics, for lack of a better word. When I grew up I thought Cantonese was the only Chinese language because it was the most common here in San Francisco, and Jackie Chan movies were popular (Then Crouching Tiger Hidden Tiger came out and these was no mistaking it for Cantonese). I had an uncle from Hong Kong and he hated mainland China but he hated Britain and the anti-Chinese racism that was common, too, so he had more mixed feelings about the handover than you'd expect. However, his family did sell all their substantial holdings and move to California over the next 10 years so I guess that answers that.
Anyway, I would 100% follow your Chinese drama sub if you had one. What's up with Jackson Wang... off to google I go. (And here it is: https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularkpopopinions/comments/f1khv8/jackson_wang_and_his_blatant_betrayal_to_hong/)
I mean it just depends what version you watched. I watched the Cantonese dub of it.
The mandarin one was what got released near me. Maybe they were all dubbed anyway- I doubt either Michelle Yeoh or Chow Yun Fat has a standard accent in Mandarin.
Yeoh apparently didn’t even speak Mandarin at the time and learned her lines phonetically for the film.
I’ve been a fan of them since debut and saw them live in 2016 (and they never came to New Zealand again ╥﹏╥) but am a lot more of a casual fan with my groups these days so this was a super interesting write up.
The relationships between different countries, their politics and how that reflects onto idols that are or aren’t supported is super fascinating. Have been wondering what that’s gonna look like with Lay fully participating in EXO’s upcoming comback for the first time in years
huh wow i'm a carat too and even joshua biased and i had zero idea all of this drama was happening especially with the xhs account opening lol but yeaaa chinese idols are always a bit tricky because on one hand they are kinda forced to post ccp propaganda, but on the other, surely they can rebel a bit? or do they even want to disagree? sometimes all you can do is create your own narrative because there is no way of knowing what their stand is
Shuhua managed it the best with not saying anything (which imo says a lot) I think, but maybe it's also because she has the benefit of yuqi being very vocally pro-China so the rabid fans on the CN side don't focus on her
Then again almost every Taiwanese kpop fan loves Shuhua so I would argue that the amount of people that would defend her in a controversy might actually match the amount of Chinese fans who care enough to attack her
Most of these are generally nothingburgers and are just stirred up when nationalism is convenient imo. I think Tzuyu recently said that she was Tzuyu from Taiwan at a concert and there was almost zero noise over that while the original backlash was so bad that well, we know what happened
imo, i feel like having one mainland and one hk/tw can either go the way it did with yuqi/shuhua with yuqi doing all the hard pulling and everyone's like "yeah sure i love their dynamic" or go the way it did with xinyu/nien with like "i hope nien distances herself from that evil xinyu" or "xinyu should make sure nien also supports the glorious party".
tbf yuqi only posts copypastas while xinyu was a direct statement
I think Yuqi doesn't really signal publicly but she's just really involved in the mainland side of things. imo she's probably ambivalent about it. if she was actually fully passionate about doing it she'd do it like xinyu, like randomly post things about it unprompted
Xinyu truly broke my heart there... I can overlook most things that Chinese idols do to show support for the mainland/CCP but when idols go out of their way to say stuff like what Xinyu did, I can't follow them anymore.
I can empathize with the sense of betrayal HK fans of Jackson Wang and Elkie must have felt though, seeing as how they both publicly talked about how they were proud to be from HK... But I'm glad the few Taiwanese idols I've followed haven't done the same flip. I suppose there are much fewer CCP sympathizers in Taiwan compared to HK though.
bruh xinyu's scandal had me thinking "bro chinese nationalism scandal in the big 25 i thought we left them in 2019-21 💀"
with HK, the reason why people are split quite evenly is that colonial rule wasn't... great, either. the ccp also lifted a entire civilisation out of poverty, so a lot of people are indebted to the party
i will say leadership has gotten FAR worse and dramatic under xi jinping though
the "create your own narrative" bit is what a lot of people ended up doing.
as with the CCP statements.. it is weibo after all. obviously we all want them to be against it, but i wouldn't blame them if they aren't, especially for newer generation chinese idols. it is incredibly scary how under xi's control of the CCP, young people become increasingly more patriotic and nationalistic.
i would have more hope of those 2 being against it than let's say, a late 4th/5th gen chinese idol. i was going to do a writeup of xinyu from tripleS but this one was far more entertaining as a minghao ult.
As someone who is very casually into tripleS and has only heard of ~ something ~ involving Xinyu and the Taiwanese member (correct me if I’m wrong) please do a write up!
Great writeup! Do HK/TW people also hate Stephen Chow?
not really to the extent of jackie chan bc apparently stephen chow doesn't really do his part in the guangdong council lol
also jackie chan has a lot of things that deserve hate even if you take away the political side of it. such as his "apology" for cheating
He was a bad boyfriend to Teresa Teng! You cannot forgive that.
This. As a HKer, the worst I can said about Stephen Chow is that his film after 00s is not all that funny and according to other actors, apparently he is kinda hard to work with?
Jackie Chan is just..... Not a good person at all. And everytime he is on big news, you know something will or already went worng
Jeez I didn't know about the controversy re the Jackie Chan at Hong Kong dates. I also didn't realize all that about Jackie Chan; growing up in the west, he's one of those celebrities who's so admired and part of so many classics that he's accepted as like, a staple but in the background of the culture, and I never really thought to dig into him. Haaa I don't know what to feel about SVT admiring him, but yknow I don't necessarily think worse of actors who admire Tom Cruise for his work despite his direct contribution to scientology and its evils, and I bite my tongue every time idols are into harry potter shit because I doubt they're aware of JKR's politics and the insane harm she funds by lobbying the British Govt. so I feel like there's no way for me not to be hypocritical here. Unclear how to evaluate their stances based on proximity to xyz that isn't going to come off as either infantilizingly excusing, conceding to "that's just the industry!" or accusatory to the idols. SVT (nor really... any idol group) generally isn't always clean with their associations, but I also tend to think when it comes to "do idols know?" "well, I personally didn't know all that about Michael Jackson or Elvis until I watched very specific documentaries, so. no high horse i guess" #mynohighhorse
All this does explain the uptick in wacko shit happening to Jun 🫠 and also why Jun fans were hating on Minghao. I thought it came out randomly I was really being like "damn can there only be one chinese idol per group? They gotta fight?" That's on me for not being curious, but also I never saw any discussion on Minghao getting hate or attacks in the first place? I only read about Jun and his family getting doxxed. I wonder if 8stars just roll with it as the norm and therefore never post protect shit on twt, or if the specific HK/TW hate never makes it to the intl side since it gets drowned out by C-fans, and Minghao gets insane support on his ventures from them. Most intl fans probably aren't even aware there's a distinction and schism between C and HK/TW fans I'll bet, esp since they're hardly interacting outside eng-spaces. Can't distinguish the writing systems, and thus any hate is always looped into a nebulous C-netizen problem that's not helped by general sinophobia. TO BE CLEAR not denying that you're seeing insane hate for him. Just interesting from what I've seen that it doesn't tend to make it to twt.
The international side also never mentions the CCP incidents, which is part "most kpop stans don't know anything about or are qualified to breach the politics of the idols' home countries in general, much less their specific relation to it" and "SVT experienced insane growth late into their career so most carats joined 5 years after their controversy." Frankly from how the fandom talks about them, carats barely seem to know anything meaningful about the members NOW.
Also, i think this is the 2nd SVT post to hit the hobby drama
I fully expected this to be about Jackson Wang when I opened this so I was surprised to see it was about Minghao. What a trip. Really hammered home that I’m out of the kpop loop these days 😂
"It is also worth noting that HK celebrity culture is INSANELY toxic."
Remember when nudes of one of the members of Twins were leaked and instead of rallying behind the victim, she had to publicly apologize because the photos ruined her "innocent" image? Mind you, she was a full ass adult.
See this is why western write ups on toxic asian fan culture or whatever lack the sauce, they're too far removed from the actual insanity.
i can't tell if this was an insult or compliment but i agree
Hongkonger reaction to this post (selected highlights):
Oh, it's "what a shame for Hong Kong". Pretty common. Not sure why they would have gotten that much hate for something all the Mainland celebrities were also doing. Besides, it's less "they don't know better" and more "I'm sure they want to be able to go home and visit their families, so fair enough" in my case.
Fun fact, there was an official companion to this copypasta, which is "what a proud for Mainland China [sic]". Hehehehe.
What, is that it? Isn't that just racist?
Oh, yeah, that would do it. Speaking Canto gets you liked by everyone.
Oh, fuck, no, I get it now. Fuck this guy.
Thank you for the write-up! I like K-pop, so I'm not sure how I've never come across this.
as someone who loves the guy mentioned this was probably the funniest comment here
about the dongbei accent, it's moreso the fact his accent isn't 'korean' enough when he speaks korean
No problem! :3
Ahh, that checks out. I can see why that would have a negative impact, but also, it's just naturally easier for some people to pick up on accents than others, so they may well be being unfair to him.
Genuine question, a bit after the fact, but would you really consider Minghao not speaking Cantonese in this instance as an overt political choice? Or like, what are your personal thoughts on this?
my genuine opinion is it's not rly that deep but i wish he could have at least said hello
I think it's more of a "at least try to speak Cantonese, even if it's heavily accented" situation. That Minghao didn't even try while everyone else did is, to a non-CCP aligned HKer like myself, tantamount to being stabbed in the back.
I absolutely would, yes. As someone with a very shallow knowledge of all these issues, I feel like the Chinese government treats Cantonese and other regional Chinese languages as if they're naturally occurring and can't be learned or taken seriously - for example, there are Cantonese TV shows aplenty, but there aren't any official Cantonese examinations. Minghao not making the effort to at least say "lei hou" aligns with that idea that Cantonese can't be spread, and only people already from the Canton region would ever speak it.
Cantonese is a very sensitive subject among Hongkongers. There are more extreme cases where (IIRC) Mainland fans have yelled "You should be speaking Mandarin!" at Hong Kong celebrities performing to a Hong Kong audience in Hong Kong. I can understand it to the extent that everyone in Mainland China has to learn Mandarin over their own regional languages to go through the public education system, so maybe they find it unfair that only Hongkongers get to go through life needing only Cantonese (and therefore they can't understand what their fave is saying), but come on, man.
Oh lord, I did not need to be reminded of the absolutely batshit fan dynamics between the mainland and HK/TW in C-pop specifically. (Used to follow INTO1 and a bunch of actors/singers, more or less fallen out of C-ent since but I still peek in once in a while to see what fresh insanity is happening this week.)
There's so much bullshit that happens with international groups.
Oh wow, as a kpop fan, I didn't even know this was going on, thanks for the write up! I'm not super plugged into SVT drama, though I have been seeing the BTS fans vs SVT Vernon's mom war happening on twitter right now lol. Chinese celebrities and CCP propaganda has always been difficult. On one hand, I completely understand fans who denounce idols that spout CCP propaganda. On the other hand, it would definitely be in an idol's best interest to stay on the good side of the CCP/mainlander Cnetz if they want to continue to have a career in mainland China. In my opinion, the best thing to do to stay out of drama and simultaneously not piss off the CCP would just be to not make a statement at all if it can be avoided.
as a very unplugged carat: why the hell are armies fighting with vernon's mom?
I am neither an army nor a carat, so my understanding of events may be wrong. I was just there for the drama, because it showed up on my timeline lol. Vernon's mom posted something on facebook that was kind of shady towards BTS. A carat reposted it to twitter with another shady message, basically agreeing with her. Armys found it and were unhappy. They dug up other social media messages from Vernon's mom basically exposing her as a MAGA Trumper and Islamophobic and insulting her based on those messages. She then responded, disagreeing that she threw any kind of shade, is MAGA (even though the messages were definitely classic right wing talking points), and insulting the fans that brought it up. Some carats defended Vernon's mom and others saw that was a losing battle, so reminded people that children often do not have the same beliefs as their parents. I think it's over now, but she was beefing with army kind of continuously for at least 1-2 days and it was not a good look.
I think this thread covers most of it :
https://www.reddit.com/r/kpop_uncensored/s/kt58H4U3fq
As a BTS fan who haven't been engaging with the fandom as much lately, same question lol I want to know more about this
Minghao is my bias and I had no idea this was happening. These people are so unhinged its crazy. The hate he's getting is absurd and they paint him to be some criminal who is doing all the atrocious things to these people.
The post was questionable, which imo is probably not his fault since living in a politically charged country is very difficult to navigate through as a celebrity.
Anyways thanks for the write-up and happy belated birthday to THE8 🐸
no problem! fellow minghao bias :))
and yes, carats should hold the china line accountable for their stance, but NOT harass them as bad as they did.
wow, i'm a carat since debut and i didn't know any of this 😭😭 (i don't really follow fandom stuff on sns soooo...) really well written, thanks!!!
i'm on the other side of the world from this and don't know much about the political situation, but why did those idols have to post something on weibo? what would have happened if they refused?
contrary to what a lot of fans think, to be honest, not much would happen other than some backlash from c-netz and maybe some censorship. however, if the idol is deemed to have 'unpatriotic viewpoints' at this time then it's a shitshow.
2019 was a huge year for C-ent and it just happened to be coinciding with one of the biggest anti-ccp events of modern day.
and people hating on someone for not speaking their language is so crazy to me?? like i really don't understand why that's such a big thing for them when minghao isn't from a region that would speak that language
I think in context, where it was simply uttering a few words in the language as part of a concert being performed in the place, there is a certain sense that if you do it, it's a sign of respecting the host country; if you specifically don't while everyone else in the group does, that reads as sus unless there is an obvious reason that might be excused. For instance, when Hololive did a world tour concert in Hong Kong this year, nearly everyone got coached in a couple of Cantonese phrases they pulled out, the only exception being Hololive Japan's Sakura Miko, who is infamously terrible with languages, and that feels like a 'valid' excuse for not doing it (i.e. she would have utterly butchered it and it would have been mutually embarrassing) in a way that I don't know if you could deploy for Minghao if all his Korean bandmates were doing it.
this is a perfect explanation imo.
okay yeah i understand now thank you
Wait I need to know the tea about Jackie Chan. Also great write up this is insane
As a casual seventeen fan who mainly follows The8’s solo work (orbit>>>) I did NOT know there was a whole side of the internet who hated him this much! Great write up, this really seems to be a complicated issue.
Thank you for that comprehensive account of all that’s happened. It answered questions that I had.
I was hoping this would be an MF DOOM style thing where being hated is a bit, disappointed to hear it's something a lot more real.
This was so interesting, I love Seventeen but knew nothing about any of this!!
first of all what a writeup! im a casual kpop fan and rly enjoy going svt so im familiar with minghao and know him as the softspoken sweet member whose dance is fire but damnnn I didnt know he was being dragged to filth with the ccp discourse. I know that it is a touchy subject for idols and how they always tiptoe around it but didnt realize svt was getting this much heat, thanks for the detailed pov and nuances
I'm a baby carat (3 months), and its super fascinating to read about this. I've always known HK had issues with China and remember the 2019 protests. I never knew the C-idols got so much backlash though. I did side-eye the Jackie Chan thing as I knew he was a CCP puppet and not a great human being in general, but to specifically target only Minghao is a little extreme.
Also, please tell me more about the Jackson Wang of it all.
Thanks for the writeup! I’ve been a carat since early last year and I remember reading a bit about this, but I had no idea about the details and the recent wave. This is well-written, and I’d love to see more from you
Huh. I'm a kpop fan but never really got into Seventeen. I know of them, listen to a few songs, that's about it. I am however a fan of the Chinese actor Hou Minghao, and this just explained a lot of strange comments I've seen aimed at him from kpop stans.
Ohmygod this predates me becoming a svt ult by like a year and somehow I never even heard of this??? Tbf I frequent mostly western and mainland chinese apps (twitter, xhs, weibo etc) and well Minghao is quite well loved by the mainland Chinese girls so I probably just missed it and ofc the HK girls I've met through svt don't have an issue w him so this felt like whiplash to read.
Super interesting. Thank you.
I hope to visit HK soon so it’s interesting to hear about it’s fan culture.
i should do a writeup on how HK's biggest idol fell into the sea (literally)
I’d definitely love to see you do more write-ups!
Please do!
Or perhaps about Jackie Chan and his bootlicking? I understand why he affiliated with the CCP but it breaks my heart.
Maybe I should do a write up about Anthony Wong (my favourite HK celebrity) and his deadbeat dad, I don’t know if that story was picked up in HK.
I did NOT expect to see Seventeen here lol
Great write up, I had no idea the intensity of this.
My god, the unhinged language dramas of the east Asian continent and just how serious it is always unsettle me. Thank goodness we're out of that.
Every once and a while I wonder what it would have been like growing up in the mainland, then I look at all the nationalistic crap and the absolutely unhinged stuff I have said about politics, and then I decide I'm happy where I am.
Thanks for the write up! This is fascinating
This was a very interesting read! Thank you very much for including the cultural and linguistic context of the controversy. 💜
I watched a cdrama where the most hated character was in the middle of a scheme to break up her son's relationship and she pulled out a bag of frozen dumplings and chatted about how convenient and nice they are. It made me wonder if the dumpling company knew that their product placement was going to be associated with a villain.
This was such an interesting read. One thing that has me puzzled is Minghao getting hate from non-Koreans for being the weakest Korean speaker in his group? If that were to bother Knetz, which I’m sure there are some who are, that would at least make sense… it’s their language, but why would people from HK, Thailand, and Taiwan hate on him for that? I’d assume he speaks Korean better than the average person from those places.
Holyshit, how did I miss all of this😭😭 Amazing write up btw! Thanks for the explanation, this is all insane to me.
I think more elaboration might be needed on this. I understand anti-CCP stuff being censored, but being ordered to post pro-CCP stuff?
It's not an explicit order per se. It's just a very strong cultural expectation that any Chinese celebrities will post the standard "in remembrance/celebration/etc of this particular day that is usually highly political" posts on their account, and sometimes parrot the standard CCP statement about hot topics like HK/Xinjiang/One China. It's the unspoken expectation that if you want the mainland Chinese audience to not immediately boycott you, you have to.
And yes, fans do absolutely give a shit about whether the celebrities post those canned propaganada statements or not.
Having seen fandoms that can get rabid about the weirdest things, I totally see that.
all this reminded me of was remember when Jackie Chan had a kpop group? Fun times
Thanks for this very detailed look into a part of the internet I know very little about!
As a Hong Konger, knowing what happened on this week six years ago, watching this made me cry uncontrollably. Thank you for the write-up
Haters shall all go to hell. (Specially those who threaten Jun and Minghao to leave the group)
Holy shit…your unbiased writings shitting on all parties is fucking awesome! I always think the extremists are the world’s biggest problems, especially with social media.
You are also really knowledgeable of the underlying currents between the fractions. This is an amazing analysis!! Thank you!😂🎉🎉🎉
I’m a mainlander and not really a K-pop stan, but I absolutely agree with you how HK, TW mainland netizens are actually the same level of unhinged only with opposing political viewpoints, lol. They demand 100% loyalty from not only celebrities, but regular people too, otherwise you’ll be deem the enemy. That’s why I mostly stay off of Chinese-speaking social media now.
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i can imagine exactly how that conversation went unfortunately... the pinks on this side are no better
Why do you call them "idols"?? Aren't these just boy bands? Aren't there like a bazillion of them? They can't all have reached "idol" status lol
whatever your intentions for this comment, in case anyone was genuinely curious--"idol" is the term for a type of celebrity in asia (originally japan and korea but now in most SE asian cultures). the term originated in the late 20th century and refers to idol in the "role model" sense.
it's that cultural origin that causes people to generally have higher expectations for idols. i can really only speak to korean culture, being korean, but idols are supposed to be role models for children. you can think of them somewhat like disney stars, though the success of bts and other kpop idols in non-idol fields (think cha eunwoo, im siwon, do kyungsoo, park jinyoung in acting, changsik from btob, haewon from nmixx for variety, going svt) and the like, has improved that image quite a bit. western people wonder why the korean public gets so pissy about idols drinking and smoking, but it's because culturally, that was their job description. be examples to pre-teens.
anyway, all this to say, idol is now just the name of the genre of celebrity and shouldn't be interpreted from a western dictionary definition.
Ok, so it sounds like we need a different word in English then lol
🤦🏻♀️
A word can have more than one meaning